The Role
To improve services to children in care, Essex are investing in new clinical psychologist posts, which will be based alongside fostering teams throughout the County. We are also recruiting to one clinical psychologist vacancy to work with to work with the Adoption, SGO Support and D-Bit teams.

All post holders will work with partners to promote understanding of attachment and trauma and deliver a range of early help, family support and interventions which effectively support children's placement or family stability.

Specific individual and shared targets and objectives will be defined within the performance management framework, but in essence the post holder will:

* Provide highly specialist psychological assessments
* Provide therapeutic input through group work, specialist advice and training to professionals and carers
* Provide high quality specialist consultation and clinical supervision to a range of partners
* Work alongside a team of social workers and mental health coordinators
* Provide regular clinical supervision to mental health coordinators

The post holder will work with considerable autonomy, within professional guidelines and the overall framework of Children and Families Services' policies and procedures. The role will be fully clinically supervised and supported by a Consultant Clinical Psychologist alongside management from Social Care service managers.

Educated to doctoral level training in Clinical/Counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996), including specific models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, as accredited by the BPS/HCPC. * Registration with the Health and Care Professionals Council as a Practitioner Psychologist * Post-doctoral training and recorded CPD experience and /or further qualifications in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice * Substantial assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist or counselling at a highly specialist level * Two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, including knowledge and experience in working with attachment and trauma. * Some experience and/or interest in adoption/fostering/trauma/attachment/social care cases, including evidence of psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, with particular emphasis on fostering or adoption. * Experience of delivering teaching, training and/or supervision. * Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside of the Local Authority and NHS. * Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups. * Evidence of continuing professional development, as recommended by the HCPC. * Knowledge of the theory and practice of main mental health disorders and presentations and, ideally, of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. disorders of attachment, personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities, ADHD, Autism spectrum, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, etc.). Person Specification



Essential



-Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical / counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS/HCPC



-Registration with the Health and Care Professionals Council as a Practitioner Psychologist



-Post-doctoral training and recorded CPD experience and /or further qualifications in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.



Knowledge & Experience



Essential:



-Substantial assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist at a highly specialist level -Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life span and presenting with the full range of clinical severity -Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care -Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts and of working in a multicultural framework -Experience of teaching or training and presenting to multidisciplinary audiences -Knowledge of legislation in relation to looked after and adopted children and young people -Experience of supervising qualified staff and/or other professionals -Experience of preparing highly complex psychological assessment reports, detailing appropriate formulations and recommendations -Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems -Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care, both as an independent professional and within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan -Knowledge and experience of the theory and practice of main mental health disorders and presentations -Knowledge of theory & practice of specialised psychological therapies in children and adolescents with attachment difficulties and complex trauma -Clinical experience of working with children, young people and their families/carers

Essential:


-Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological and neuropsychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration -Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their carers and other professionals -Skills / experience in providing individual and/or group clinical consultations to professional and non-professional groups -Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to distressing situations and challenging behaviours -Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, including verbal abuse -Ability to identify research needs of service and conduct research -Ability to prepare concise, evidence based, coherent reports summarising large volumes of information from multiple sources whilst adhering to strict time frames